London Brews
by Manialoll Spins
Summary: John starts anew as the best scalphunter the circus has seen in years, but soon he is roped into the secret Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy investigation. In the process, John uncovers more about The Fall and himself than he might be ready for. The day Peter Guillam settles into his office in Brixton, there is a row at the Ping-Pong table. JohnLock, Peter/Richard, Peter/John
1. John Watson the Scalphunter

Written for the AU contest on fuckyeahjohnlockfanfic on tumblr :D Cross-posted on AO3 too, link in my profile.

Meshing: post-Reichenbach, the events of TTSS take place in modern times, Peter's orientation is from the movie. Even though a lot of details were taken from the book, it's easy to follow if you haven't read it: every time you come across something unfamiliar, assume it's from the book XD I made some things up on the Sherlock side, but most of what I'll be doing with TTSS is canon until it touches something from Sherlock.

Enjoy! :D

x-x-x-x-x

"I am about to shove my foot in my mouth." John says mostly to himself, but maybe also as a gentle warning, a last chance to get away for the both of them.

There's a heavy mist falling over the city and Mycroft isn't as amicable about sharing his umbrella with John as he used to be. London has been angry in the past few months, building up something big, and they can both taste it in the air. It's unnerving for the both of them though neither would admit it. Mycroft never would have thought to see the day John Watson reminded him of Ricki Tarr, the impulsive agent brought in by his older colleague for God knows what purpose a couple of years ago, the very same agent who had been a secret thorn in his side for just as long. John is too far gone to see Mycroft as anything other than his iceman reputation.

"You work in the circus." It's not a question. "That's what you people call MI6, but you already knew that I know that, because you know that my mother had a short-lived stint as a pavement artist before I was born." John takes a pause and Mycroft can see him gathering himself. For the first time perhaps since they first met, John looks to the floor when he speaks. "I haven't forgiven you… but I am ready to put that aside for now. An exception, so to speak."

John is not doing so well. Mycroft has been busy at worst, but John… well it was to be expected that it would impact him more. In his casual observation, Mycroft finds nothing too surprising. John is limping a bit, but not enough to go for a cane yet. He has a slight tremble all over, but that could be from the rain and the cold and the air. He is keeping clean and shaven, but hasn't bought anything new for himself as if he's stopped thinking about those kinds of things. He looks tired but in good health, his lips are chapped, he's probably lacking water, maybe he's been drinking a bit more, but not to an alarming extent.

They are very blatantly outside the Diogenes club, holding up the car that came for Mycroft.

"What do you want, John?"

Mycroft in his natural state strives to never appear as though he is doing anything; it's a nice cover to be lopped in with lazy politicians, and goes with his fake job description of "minor position in the British government," and it keeps him open to hearing everyone's secrets to let them think he has nothing better to do than listen. Lately, Mycroft has been seen working, spending long hours at his desk, walking fast, checking his watch, checking his phone. Nothing good for his image, surely.

He knows before he asks, and already he's thinking of possible placements, although they both know where he'll end up.

"A job."

x-x-x-x-x

John is the best scalphunter the circus has seen in over a decade.

He is warm and understated undercover, and quiet and efficient during mailfist jobs. He excelled in training during his time in Sarratt. In the field, no one talks about him. Back at the circus, he is all the rage. For the first time since the fall, John is content. Between Brixton and the missions, he knows he is never truly happy, but he thinks that for now, it can be enough. He lets the adrenaline carry him. He is surprised by how much of a non-issue his shoulder is. He goes on dates every once in a while, sometimes for cover, sometimes because he wants to. He gets to travel quite a bit. On occasion, he gets placed in small cells with other agents. John also gets to be known for his prowess in teamwork. He makes friends. They're circus friends, but friends nonetheless. He is strangely relieved to find he doesn't see Mycroft half as often as he thought he would. Molly Meakin never reproaches him the lack of eye contact. Time passes as it should, maybe even a bit faster. John is not around London long enough to feel its pressure anymore.

And then, half a year later, on a day like any other except for all the ways in which it isn't, Control dies.

Of course John had heard of operation Testify; he wasn't completely out of the loop for being in Brixton, and what he didn't hear on the grapevine, he was sometimes privy to via Mycroft himself on his occasional but thankfully rare visits. Besides, the empty office was pretty hard to miss. Jim had been the one to settle him into his position; he had taken the time and given him all the ropes Sarratt couldn't. Jim's exile and reform to a lotus eater had come as unwelcome and unsettling to John. Once, on a voluntary date with a coworker who shared his pain, he vaguely expressed the sentiment of grieving twice, in layers. He stayed cryptic for many reasons, but the result of getting laid was completely unexpected.

In the aftermath there is a sudden lull in operations. Inertia. Lots of moving upstairs translates to a whole lot of doing nothing downstairs. All networks are frozen. Contact with the circus is momentarily cut left and right as a new leadership takes hold. Back in London, circus employees get shifted around, mothers get promoted and demoted to follow their handlers, a few janitors are fired. He is stationed on the edge of an inactive warzone with newlywed lamplighters and a local informant at the time, and in the second month when they start to show signs of cracking, John Watson does his best to keep them whole.

In the end when they get sent back home in their stocking feet because their new connection to London is incredibly clumsy and more than a bit faulty, the lamplighters are the ones who get the better end of the stick. The informant is left behind and gets shot on the third day after their departure.

x-x-x-x-x

Peter doesn't have many things to bring down to Brixton.

There's not much from his old position he can bring to the scalphunter bureau. He doesn't get the upper-floor privilege of taking his only mother with him and he owns nothing of use but some office supplies and a picture or two of an old female classmate he hasn't talked to since graduation to tuck in obvious places for good measure. Walking the short distance between the lift and his office, he can't be sure of what awaits him but he assumes from the gossip that it's not much anymore. A grumpy mother sits outside his door at her desk and barely glances his way when he walks past her with his hands full of his box and no way to open the door himself.

His office is small and dingy with a great big window facing a grey brick wall. It's the only thing the office has going for itself between its yellowed cream walls, stained industrial carpet, and predictable layer of dust. It's colder than the rest of the building and it doesn't take Peter long figure the window doesn't close properly. He sets up his few things and his cover and sits at his desk.

An hour later, it dawns on him that this must be the reason behind the Ping-Pong table he passed on the floor below. He thinks about going through the filing cabinet then thinks against it. The place doesn't feel like his yet. Nothing does. He can tell from the lack of wear on the keyboard and how old the model is, that the computer on his desk is really Jim's. There's a faded post-it on the screen with a standard issue password on it. He's read some of Prideaux's reports before: they were all handwritten. Maybe he should go out and meet people, he thinks, maybe he should take a walk around and get a feel of the place.

x-x-x-x-x

John has gone from best scalphunter still in service to worst Ping-Pong player in the building in a matter of days.

He gives it his best at first, figures he has nothing better to do, but his limbs are too short, his stealth is completely useless to the sport, and he's never been the quickest on his feet; there's only so much his hand-eye coordination can do. After two full weeks, he gives up, quiet and slightly dangerous, and retreats to an old desktop nearby to memorize all the rules of the game instead.

As far as he's concerned, Brixton is dead.

He's playing referee for a couple of guys he's worked with before in Pakistan. They've been informed by what they think is the grapevine but really is Mycroft texting John, that a new head of bureau is set to come down today, but the mood is no different than any other day since they got back. They figure, and John shares the sentiment, that the new guy would be better off knowing what he's getting into right off the bat. No use in acting all excited about nothing. And then there's the fact that none of them have been allowed to miss a day's "work" since Control's death; agents with more intricate covers have been ordered to remain out of the country just in case, take a vacation, but no such luck for the loose cannons.

As a result they've all gone a bit stir-crazy.

At noon they realize they've missed the arrival of their new boss, who actually came in much earlier than they did, and John bribes the rookie from the leftover nuts and bolts team that moved in recently to sweet-talk the head mother into giving them a hint, at the very least.

He's tall, she says, and pretty, which is beyond funny to hear the rookie say, and he looks like someone who'll be rubbish at doing nothing, which they all think is pretty brilliant though they all doubt it'll change much. None of them have enough of a reason to go knocking on his door though, and so they wait, as they always do now, playing Ping-Pong and cracking dusty jokes.

x-x-x-x-x

At three on the dot, John gets a text. He almost doesn't open it when he sees it's from Mycroft, but the radio's playing a song about umbrellas and their boss has yet to show his face on the second floor.

It's not him.

MH

John scrunches his face at the small screen and rereads the message a few times. Of course his mind jumps to Sherlock when he reads it, but that's where his mind always goes when he's not watching it, so he just calls himself silly and gets on with it.

Nothing's happened yet. Mycroft's bugs mustn't be functioning properly.

x-x-x-x-x

Peter heard the footsteps of heavy boots outside his door, he's not an idiot, but he figures the mother will talk to him when she's ready. He'd been doing mostly field work on the docks since his return from Africa, but still he can't help but compare the way every little sound no one makes echoes against the walls, with the way he sometimes couldn't hear himself think back at the circus. Of course Alleline's reorganization and everyone's newfound disregard for this entire division has a lot to do with it, but Peter's not up for deep thinking right now. He still has to find a way to tell Richard he's been demoted, and placing the blame on his new position in general is much easier than diving into the circus's latest political structure.

Peter's never been one for long silences. Richard plays the flute in his spare time.

Peter decides against taking the rackety lift a second time and settles for the stairs to get to the second floor. He doesn't remember being impressively good at Ping-Pong, but he can't recall being particularly bad at it either.

x-x-x-x-x

The text was an attempt at prevention, John realizes belatedly.

x-x-x-x-x

He's just stated his opening line when the yelling starts over him. Seconds later, the sound of flesh being pounded by flesh joins the clatter of two wooden pallets against the tiled floor.

Oh well, he thinks, Peter could use a good row.

x-x-x-x-x

Mycroft hovered around Peter's desk at the circus on his last day while he was packing, after hours. He had this look on his face like he wanted to appear as posh and uncaring as he always did but couldn't get some on his features to cooperate. It made him look even more over the top than usual, but Mycroft had always been kind to Peter, and Peter liked him generally, so he waited as patiently as he could and tried to look like he didn't mind.

"Hello," Mycroft said after some time with a tone that matched the contortions of his face.

Peter gave him an acknowledging look while he split his remaining papers into piles of keep, pass on, and shred. Naturally, there was nothing in the keep pile.

"I imagine you'll be off to Brixton in the morning?" he started. Peter acquiesced, silently reasoning with himself to be numb because Mycroft might like him, but no one wants to hear what Peter thinks of his displacement. Mycroft didn't say anything else for a long time, and Peter got the feeling his full attention might be required for whatever was or wasn't going on right now, but when he looked at him, Mycroft visibly closed off even more.

Peter resisted the urge to sigh.

x-x-x-x-x

John is so focused on the heated redemption match unfolding that he doesn't register the footsteps over the rest of the hubbub until he hears the voice.

He'd know that voice anywhere.

A foul is committed but he isn't looking anymore.

x-x-x-x-x

His face.

John very suddenly has no air left in his lungs. He also, simultaneously, forgets he has a need to breathe. He feels the phantom pain of a stab in the back, pain blossoming from a single point, spreading neither hot nor cold like a blood stain. On the outside, he just looks a bit stunned.

John catches up with himself quicker than he ever could have half a year ago. He breathes in deeply through his nose. Once. Twice. He's been getting a bit better at observing. So he looks. The suit, his expression, his demeanour, he's saying something, an introduction of sorts, but John isn't listening, he's struggling to stay rational.

He wears the suit of a trendy young man, and he looks to be those things, but the sneaky crow's feet around his eyes indicate he's closer to forty than he is to thirty. Everything the mother said was true.

John isn't good enough yet. There's a din in his ears. Over the clamour of crashing furniture he isn't hearing anything at all. He gets up and knocks his chair back, but no one notices. The two players are having a row that John isn't stopping about the foul that John didn't catch. John doesn't care.

He has half a mind to hit him, sock him, yell, claw at Sherlock's new clothes and tear them in revenge, add to the commotion and throw more things. Inside him everything his boiling, he wants to whisper under his breath everything he never said and everything he could never admit to.

Peter Guillam steps forward to stop the fight.

x-x-x-x-x

John can't text Mycroft because he doesn't know what to type, and he can't call because he doesn't trust his own voice.

At five thirty his phone gets a text.

I'll have you reassigned.

MH

x-x-x-x-x

It's not that he didn't notice.

He'd almost finished cleaning up after himself. He was closing up the latches on his briefcase when Mycroft finally decided to say his piece.

"I have a brother," He said and Peter froze because yes, everyone in the office knew about Sherlock Holmes, but Mycroft never talked about him to anyone. Not to deny and not to confirm. "You should probably know a few things about him."

That evening after hours, the things Mycroft Holmes told him were not the kind many people are aware of. The information he was privy to, Peter knows, is from a world the circus could never touch.

In the back of his mind Peter thinks of the hours Richard gave him, playing the flute for him day after day while he stared at the ceiling and drank from the bottle upon his return from Africa.

_It's that he knows._

x-x-x-x-x

John can't stay. The row is over, the participants are rubbing at their faces and a bloke from nuts and bolts left to get them some ice. Good. His face. The crow's feet. He's tall, the mother said, he's pretty, he can't stay very still for very long, he's an action man.

John is getting better at observing.

Peter Guillam isn't just another way to say Sherlock Holmes.

x-x-x-x-x

In the gap of time between John's departure and a text from Mycroft, Peter thinks of going after him.

He doesn't.

x-x-x-x-x

Next time: John gets a tweening job as an inquisitor, which is a joke because he knows about as much about the circus as Roddy Martindale. Mycroft convinces someone somewhere to make him a pavement artist, but networks haven't stopped inexplicably collapsing since Operation Testified. Down in Brixton, Peter Guillam starts reading a backup of A Study in Pink. It turns out he wasn't as good at Ping-Pong as he thought he was.


	2. John Watson the Schoolteacher

All my apologies to everyone reading this story on , I thought I'd uploaded this chapter here as soon as I'd done it on AO3 D:

Terribly sorry for the wait!

x-x-x-x-x

They can call this job whatever they like, but Sarratt is the Nursery either way and Inquisitor is just a fancy term for school teacher. He wasn't even in the field for a full year; it's a mystery to John what they expect from him. Whatever he did that was so good, he doesn't have a clue how to put it into words; he needs a textbook to prep his lectures because he has no idea what to say.

Brixton might have been dead but John still feels like he's being punished now.

x-x-x-x-x

Roddy Martindale isn't sure how he ended up with John Watson's file on his desk. Mycroft doesn't know how that happened either. To both of their defence, this odd mix-up did occur around the time of the annual office Christmas party, and Santa Stalin drove everyone to drink that year.

x-x-x-x-x

John has never wanted to teach. He never got the urge, when he was younger and playing pretend, to take up a plastic apple and hog the chalkboard. He played doctor an embarrassing amount, and soldier, predictably enough, but never teacher.

His students like him well enough. He is clear and precise, he is very good at discipline, but rarely needs to practice the skill, the presence he had in the field that made people listen to him seems to have followed him to the classroom without much fuss, and... there might be a piece of him, just a shard, that still recoils in disbelief at the way Sherlock could speak to people sometimes, a part of him who still tries to compensate for that. It makes him kinder, more patient.

Teaching is most definitely something he could do; it's just not something he wants to.

His students like him well enough, but on most days John isn't so sure the feeling is mutual. Potential spies are worse than kindergartners. His classes are full of overconfident pricks and oversensitive intellectuals picked from the big name campuses, or imported from the military and the competition. Kids in their early twenties who don't know anything yet, who tried to "prepare" themselves by rewatching their old James Bond cassettes. Looking at them some mornings makes him feel like he's back in his first year of medical school.

He might have had a few delusions left from his science degree back then. To be honest he can't remember. He's kept far too many delusions around lately to be comfortable around those he's left behind.

x-x-x-x-x

John sat in on a lecture once, on a warm evening in Sarratt after his own classes had finished. He sat there and, for the first time in a long time, John despaired.

x-x-x-x-x

Peter is bored.

Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored.

Bored.

He's been stuck in his office now for about a week, and it doesn't look like he'll get any field action until the last syllable of recorded time. It's a wonder and blessing that the Brixton office has no PA system.

"If anyone in this building knows any card tricks, ghost stories, or would like to have some sex, please do make your way to my office. Thank you."

It's perfectly normal, following a fiasco like Testify, for the circus to scale back on the division that caused the scandal. Peter gets that. He knew it would happen when he grudgingly accepted his reassignment. He'd expected it, and besides, Bill Haydon had stopped by right after he got the notice from Percy to tease him about it and jostle him around some.

He knew. He was by no means prepared.

It must be said that this is the low to his high, that in the beginning of the month, somewhere between the audible gears of the faulty lift and the persisting silence of his hall mother, Peter cracked and raided the file cabinet in his office, reading anything and everything in sight. It had been a fascinating week. Looking back on it, it may have been callous of him, but at the time it seemed so necessary. Bored half to death with a half glass of old sherry and no one to tell him no, he treated the mass of documents like a really good book filled with people he mostly knew. The distraction enabled him, if only for a little while, to forget his demotion, and forget that he still hadn't found the heart to tell Richard about it.

For one whole week, Peter could look forward to going to work. Even the drive to Brixton seemed more bearable. Reading those case files, he forgot all about what had happened on his first day, the end of John Watson's promising scalphunter career.

Now Peter is sighing at the ceiling and refreshing his inbox. His chair makes screeching noises back and forth. He looks out the grim little window, but it's just as disappointing as every other time he's looked at it. He shifts his gaze to the walls and thinks he should really bring some art from home or something. He wonders about the ceiling again, but on second thought he really doesn't want to know what that stain is. He thinks of petitioning the fifth floor for a PA system, then thinks of a dozen reasons for them to say no. His shoes could use a good scrubbing, his fingernails too. Maybe he should get a pet plant.

Lies. His shoes are unscuffed, his fingernails freshly manicured.

Peter opens a new tab and starts reading John Watson's blog.

He's ghastly with plants.

x-x-x-x-x

John was packing the leftovers of his personal things from 221B. As of yet, they hadn't been an issue, but Mrs. Hudson was looking for a new tenant and having John's old things tucked in the drawers was counterproductive. In the end, Sherlock's science equipment had not been donated to a school. Instead, they hogged the basement down in 221C, the apartment that could never be lived in again anyway.

He didn't think he'd left much, but he had been in a hurry, and he was surprised, upon his return, to see how little he'd really taken with him. Of course all of the furniture was Mrs. Hudson's, but it was all the little things that got to John. The box of books he'd already read in the back of the closet, the little pile of paid bills in the last desk drawer, a yellowed and stained grocery list, the cleaning products he had abandoned in the kitchen cupboard.

He was, quite frankly, overwhelmed. John retreated to his old room to breathe a little, and that's when he found it again: his copy of the old family photo album.

x-x-x-x-x

In Roddy Martindale's defense, he'd heard great things about John Watson. He'd also heard from someone somewhere that ex scalphunters made the best teachers, but that might have only been a rumour.

x-x-x-x-x

Richard does his best, but Peter is clearly somewhere else.

He is sober, certainly, he never gets home later than he has to, never forgets the shopping, but there's something about him. He smells different. Richard remembers more than a few times complaining that Peter smelt something awful like the docks. His office was close and his secretary Molly liked to keep the window open, Peter would say then. Nowadays Peter smelt like dust and had an air of loneliness about him that did not leave him even at home.  
"Did you have a fight with Molly Meakin?" Richard finally asks one night.

"Who? Oh, no, not at all." Peter says and quickly recovers. "Molly got a promotion, Richard." Which is the truth; she is a burrower now, right on the edge of Operation Witchcraft, sometimes allowed to hear but never to touch, which is still closer than Peter might ever be.

"And you?"

x-x-x-x-x

Sherlock had come out with it out of the blue, one grey Sunday afternoon.

"Your mother worked for M16, didn't she?" He asked with the tone he used when he made informed guesses; it was an honest question, but Sherlock obviously had an idea of what the answer was.

They had closed the lid on a case and casket around dawn and, possibly in a rare fit of mercy for John who hadn't taken as quickly to grave digging as Sherlock had hoped, boredom hadn't taken Sherlock back yet. Instead, they sat in their chairs by the unlit fireplace in relative calm, John reading a newly purchased book and Sherlock tending to his violin. To keep himself occupied, Sherlock would observe John as he read and try to deduce things he had never noticed before.

"Yeah, she did," John really didn't mind having his reading interrupted; Sherlock's explanations for his statements were always better than any novel John could find to read. "Only for a bit, before I was born." he said, and then added because he knew Sherlock was waiting for him to ask. "How did you know?"

"Well, I'd suspected just from your conversations with Mycroft and the vocabulary you used in your small talk with him, but it's your choice of novels that really tipped me off." John flipped his book around to look at the cover. When he looked back at Sherlock, he was smiling. They laughed.

x-x-x-x-x

When John gets to his apartment that evening, the sun has already long set. He is starting to get used to his commutes back and forth to Sarratt, but he is even later than usual tonight, having he stopped at the shops on his way to pick up milk and some takeaway. The light over the door must have gone out during the day, because it was still on when he left that morning. John has some trouble with his keys in the dark. His new landlady has nothing on Mrs. Hudson, but then again he hasn't been very responsive to her... advances.

It must have been drizzling outside, but John only notices the dampness of his hair and the added weight to his jacket once he is well inside. John turns on some lights with his elbow makes his way to his lackluster kitchen to drop off his shopping bags, tripping on an errant novel in the sitting room on his way. In actuality, it's a miracle that this is only the second time this has happened this week as John's sitting room is more than a bit flooded with books at the moment.

He doesn't notice it right away though it is a jarring shade of yellow. Much like with the rain, John seems to think he has more important things to focus on. He goes back to the front of the flat to lock the door and take off his shoes, then busies himself with putting away the milk and heating up his takeaway. He is plating his chow mein when he finally spots it. On the counter is a post-it, a note, from Mycroft.

Terribly sorry for the mix-up. You start as a babysitter Monday.  
MH

John is pretty happy, reading the note, but then he curses, and curses the fact that he forgot all about his cell phone, the one he lost three days ago on the tube. This is good news. John suspects that body guarding must have been Mycroft's first choice for his reassignment, backing his theory that he had nothing to do with John's month and a half spent as a useless if well liked inquisitor. This is good news. Nonetheless, John is less than keen on knowing that Mycroft has been in his flat. Oh, John has no doubt that Mycroft already knew what it looked like, the circus has his address and it is Mycroft after all, but...

The flat is clean. Every weekend, John gets out the Hoover, a mop, some cloths, and a list of things to scrub. With the exception of the living room, it's a tidy flat too, and even there John suspects the scattered library only makes him look smart. It's not a place with character like 221B had been, but it's not particularly modern either. In fact, it's almost reminiscent of John's little one-room, the place he stayed at upon his return from Afghanistan, but bigger. John has had the place for about a year now and it still isn't very dressed. He supposes it's not something that's expected of him anyway.

Still.

When John looks around his flat, all he can see are the empty spaces. All around there are places left deliberately bare in hopes that one day they could be filled. Empty shelves in the fridge and freezer, an unused desk, bare walls, drawers with nothing in them. There isn't an entire room filled. There is no room left entirely empty either, but that's just to avoid questions, should he have someone over.

Whether John is expecting Sherlock back or still holds some hope to find a nice woman, only Mycroft knows now.

x-x-x-x-x

"I've been demoted."

It's a statement he meant to deliver with a tone of finality; he's not sure how a tremor made its way in there. The impulse to let carry it over to his limbs is tempting. Richard's face isn't helping.

"Oh Peter," He says.

When Peter came back from Africa, he was done. He has a vague recollection of parking the car, shutting it off, and sitting in it for hours in front of their flat, desperately trying to come up with something to say back to that warm relieved "welcome home" that would great him. He was so sure, so certain that Richard would leave him then. There was no way. There was no possible way Peter could muster up the strength necessary to keep calm and carry on, make like nothing had happened, make love to Richard, yes everything's fine, the trip went okay, I'm just a bit knackered is all.

All his agents. All his networks. Not just the one in the city. All of them. Caught, captured, questioned, tortured, and hung right in front of him. No one got out. No one except him.

He came home with his tiny suitcase stripped clean of anything important back in Sarratt. Filled with all sorts of nothing important from the shops of Sarratt because when he came home he had nothing in there to his name, just the corpses of his networks, paperwork and rolls of film. Much like his clothes, products, and memorabilia, Peter had the frightening impression of having left his soul in Morocco, with the corpses of his dead agents.

So he came up with a lie. No "Yes Richard I'm fine," but more like "Hey Richard there was an incident at my workplace and several of my coworkers died."

It worked.

Peter had not expected anything. Previous relationships dictated that when something like this happened, when he changed too much as agents tend to do, the best he could hope for was for things to stay the same, to be excused. Richard took care of him. He let him get away with things too, the drinking, and the not talking, taking walks at odd hours of the night to clear his head. But he stayed, he stuck around, made coffee, gave him paracetemols for his hangovers, he played the flute when Peter was sober enough for it and held his hand whenever. He was calm and patient and perfect.

He was perfect.

x-x-x-x-x

John's mother is relatively pretty. Short, she is slender with bland mid-length hair and a small mouth, but her eyes are a very nice blue. He got a lot from her, maybe too much. John is back in the sitting room, in his old chair with the photo album and a cuppa from Mrs Hudson. She's left him to his clutter a little while ago and his tea is cold. He drinks it anyway, sparing an awkward thought to his current landlady and her clumsy passes at him behind her husband's back.

It's so quiet in the flat. Peaceful. If John lets himself relax, it's almost like Sherlock is sleeping in his room, finally letting his poor body rest after a long case. By that scenario, John should be asleep too, but it wasn't so unusual, back when things like this really could happen, that John would be the one still up, cleaning the remains of an experiment or polishing his gun.

He was rather hoping not to feel this, he thinks now, alone and chilly in the underheated flat. He should get in and get out, he'd told himself on the way, take his things, salute Mrs Hudson, and go back to his own place, his nice place, bigger than he'd hoped to get when he left, with its lifeless kitchen and crowded sitting room. He should go back and pick up all his damn books, not stay and feel like home.

He left because it was empty. It makes no sense whatsoever for it to feel full again, right again.

But it does.

"Hey, Mrs. Hudson?" He calls down the stairs to her. "Mrs. Hudson, how much would you charge for rent, say, if I moved back in?"

x-x-x-x-x

"Yeah, I've been demoted. Head of the scalphunters now, sounds good, right? Head of a department. Except everyone knows the section's gone to shit after that scandal in old Chezcko, don't know if you remember seeing it on the news? Heard about it on the radio? I think it even made the papers. An embarrassment. The best agent we had. Well, one of the best. No, I can't tell you, I can't tell you what any of that means, I can't tell you anything, Richard, because you still think I'm a government clerk at the Competition in the office that was shot at a couple years ago!"

Peter says none of this. He doesn't mean most of it anyway.

Instead he says it's just a demotion. He says no, don't play the flute, I love it when you play the flute, my salary is actually higher now if you'd believe it, although it'll probably get cut soon, no, I don't need a drink Richard, I don't need anything, I- I'm sorry. Yeah. Some air. I need some air.

Don't wait up for me.

These things, he mostly means, but he needs something else.

x-x-x-x-x

The first time John went through his things at 221B, he also stumbled upon the old family album.

That was the same day he called Mycroft.

x-x-x-x-x

The walk back from 221B is everything John thought it could never be. He has a spring in his step and the alien urge to smile at strangers. His boxes stayed in the flat and will be accompanied by the rest of his things as soon as his lease runs out. It's more than a bit nippy outside but he can't feel it, he's too fast.

He hasn't felt anywhere this good since the aftermath of his first mailfist job.

x-x-x-x-x

Peter is freezing. He wasn't thinking. Richard meant well, and it's cold out, and he left in a hurry without his coat, and what if Richard thinks he's mad at him, he isn't, is he? He isn't.

He shouldn't be.

x-x-x-x-x

He's so used to taking the tube now. Sherlock hated the tube. It may have been a motivation for John, but mostly he just couldn't afford all the cabs by himself. Besides, he's a spy now, the crowd is good for cover, and hadn't they learned from all their cabbie accidents already?

He was surprised, when he found it, to see how close his current flat was to 221B when it was so inexpensive by comparison. John is wearing his good coat, the one he got on a particularly bloody mission to eastern Russia a quarter year past.

Tonight, John is walking home.

x-x-x-x-x

There should be a little cafe right around here. Recently, Peter had moonlit as a lamplighter as an old favour to Toby Esterhase, just once, right here in London. It just so happened that in the process he found this clever little hideout that provided delightfully substandard coffee and the best cannoli this side of Italy itself. He would get one, maybe two, and bring some back. For Richard. To say sorry.

Now if only he could find the bloody place.

x-x-x-x-x

He got the idea on his walk when he passed by the place. Sherlock had brought him there first and he'd been back a couple of times since. Once with a date, actually, but the baker had recognized him and made the gaffe of asking where his boyfriend was and if the pretty lady was his sister, and by the way, was she single? No amount of on-the-house cannoli could fix that one, and since then John's heard they've moved in together, the baker and the straight sister he never had.

x-x-x-x-x

Peter could swear it was somewhere around here.

x-x-x-x-x

The bell rings a shrill little song and John is very glad for how dingy this place looks. It's got to be the best kept secret in London, the tiny dusty bakery with the broken neon sign that advertises all the wrong things. The soup here is horrendous. Late as it is, there are more than enough left, the best cannoli this side of Italy itself.

"Why, hello there John! Oh and hi there Sherlock, long time no see!"

x-x-x-x-x

"Why hello there John! Oh and hi there Sherlock, long time no see! I almost didn't recognize you there, you changed your hair, haven't you!"

It must be said, Peter was rather deep undercover when he came here, wearing a hat, hiding his face in the shadows of the place, of which there were many. He nods to the baker for lack of knowing what to do.

"Hello, John." He says.

x-x-x-x-x

John doesn't turn around. Not yet. Peter, he thinks even as he hears the baker go on about how much Sherlock has changed since they've last seen each other. It's got to be Peter Guillam again.

"Hello, John." Definitely.

"Hullo, Peter." It has to be.

"Oh I see, solving another case, are ya? Top secret, yes? I won't say a word, I promise! So how have you boys been?""

Silence.

It is.

x-x-x-x-x

John has two days left to wrap up his lectures and hand the torch over to his successor in the classroom. He is getting a glass of water during break when he overhears that one of Guillam's old agents from his time at the docks has gone off the grid. Defected, they say. John knows that, logically, they're probably right, but hearing them speculate so openly stirs something in him he hasn't felt in almost two years.

He still can't put a name to it.

x-x-x-x-x

Next time: More coffee is had, Ping-Pong is actually played, it's the start of a rekindled Testified, and a certain George Smiley makes an appearance. There's a storm coming, but for now, it's good to be back at 221B.


End file.
